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I personallly disabled all Nvidia stuff in kernel and used Nvidia driver from the Nvidia-drivers package in gentoo (which loads from the site as far as im aware).

With the offical Nvidia driver for that card I believe it needs to be below a certain version, but I'm not sure which version unfortunately (Not at home to check for you), I have an FX (5500?) card and I had to drop back to a specific version as the new updates stopped working on a selection of old cards. It appears your card is listed on the site so I presume thats not your problem.

It did give this infomation in the /etc/X11/xorg.log (not sure this is the exact name of the log file either, sorry!) amd displayed on screen advising to downgrade the driver - this then fixed my issues.

The version you've chosen is the right one to use with your video card.

Quote:

Originally Posted by linus72

I can-

1) install a kernel and source from say Debian,slackware,arch,gentoo,etc
debian has a nvidia-kernel pkg

2) go with reg 2.6.33 kernel and compile myself and then do driver?

You could use whatever you want, however I'd compile it myself. First, the kernel, then the driver. I think that the nvidia driver installer looks into /usr/src/linux. That's usually a symlink to the directory containing your kernel sources. You must make sure it points to the correct tree, otherwise the driver will be compiled for a different version of the kernel (if there's any other).

But, don't quote me on that, and read the nVidia docs, I am sure they will know far better than I do.

Note also that this old driver might require a specific kernel version, and even an specific X.org version. In my experience nVidia have been pretty good in this regard: they usually maintain actively the legacy drivers so you can continue to use them in modern systems. At least, they used to. It's been a long time since I used an nVidia card myself though, so that might have changed. You'll have to check yourself.

the Nvidia installer from site says that rivafb or nvidiafb is causing it to Not install
and that I must remove rivafb,etc from kernel,etc

I am using my slackware 2.6.33 kernle and source,modules,etc in SourceMage install
both are using Xorg 1.7.5 and so I am gonna recompile my slack kernel; again try to install nvidia driver
and see what happens

When booting my current 13 install; the fb switches at mid-boot
and says its using "nouveaufb" and its at vga 791

2) Only the 9.04 buntu install actually has a Nvidia driver installed via Synaptic
as I use this when playing Glest
All the other installs use a "nv" driver or vesa or something; most are "auto-setup"
as I didnt need to do anything with xorg.conf

3) Wanting to expand my knowledge of Linux; I took the Deep Water and installed SourceMage Linux
a "build-it-yourself" similar to Gentoo

The sourcemage setup is OK, but Xorg wont start with vesa or any other driver?!

I installed my Slackware current 2.6.33-K7 kernel,modules,etc that I have already compiled previously,
into thwe SourceMage install.

So, the slack current install and the sourcemage install will be running EXACT same kernel,modules,etc

Thats my intent;

First; get my slackware current and Sourcemage X working and configured with Nvidia driver
then
Install Nvidia driver System-Wide(lots of different distros)

Firstly - WOW thats alot of distros - I've only ever stuck with gentoo as Debian failed me as a noobie and I never felt the need to experiment outside of gentoo (If you find my first post on these forums its rather amusing to see how "green" I was).

Ok I think the next steps are

1. Recompile the kernel without any drives as such, turn off vesa and nv.
2. Install nVidia driver; compile (it links into your kernel, so make sure your kernel is in the correct place - check the documentation). Also keep the driver safe, you'll need to recompile it each time you change kernels.
3. Figure out how to tell X to load the nVidia driver instead of NV or vesa (I can't recall how to do this, its a setting via the Xorg.conf but I dont have acess to mine atm - once again documentation should show this
4. Good luck!